Smother Me
by tamaraface
Summary: Five years Post-Chosen. Buffy and Faith reunite to save the world. Will it bring them together or tear them further apart?
1. The Great Escape

**Title**: Smother Me

**Author**: Tamara

**Rating**: PG-13 for violence and language.

**Pairings**: Primarily BuffyFaith, mentions of past BuffySpike and FaithWood.

**Disclaimer**: I own not, all hail Joss. Title from the used, assorted bits of dialog from episodes of BtVS and Angel, including, but not limited to, "Amends," etc.

**Summary**: Buffy finds Faith after five years of nothing. Apocalypse is nigh and Buffy needs her, in more ways than Buffy may be willing to admit. 2008, five years post-Chosen.

**Author's Note**: First, I was originally just going to post this as a super-long one shot, but I don't want to anymore. Chapters it is. Second, If it isn't painfully obvious as you read, this is my first foray into BuffyFic. I've been eager but wary to attempt writing this fandom because I'm not sure my humble skills could do it justice. Here's hoping. Feedback is love.

--

**September 2003**

**Cleveland **

"_Faith?__"_

"_Hey, B.__"_

"_What are you doing?__"_

_Faith sighed, blue smoke curling out of her mouth as she did. She did not want to have this conversation right now. Or ever. She gestures at the duffel bag on the step next to her. __"__What's it look like?__"_

"_No,__"__ Buffy says, and Faith can almost hear her shaking her head. __"__No, just come back inside.__"_

"_Can't do that.__"_

"_Yes, you can. Just get up, turn around, and walk straight until you're through the door. Easy.__"_

_It's not that easy._

"_Faith...__"_

"_Look, we both knew this was coming. It's not like I was gonna stay here forever, you know.__"_

_Buffy was in front of her now, glaring down at Faith through the darkness, and Faith just sat on the steps, holding her dying cigarette. __"__I get that you're scared, __but running away isn't going to make anything better.__"_

"_It's the _only _thing that can make it better. Nothing's different__.__"_

"Everything _is different!__,__"__ Buffy corrects emphatically._

"_You, maybe. Everyone else. Not me. I'm the same as I ever was__. Time doesn't make __it__ go away.__"_

"_But time can change it. You __don't have to leave. You can stay here and you'll see, it doesn't have to go bad.__"__ She knows Faith is worried about screwing up again. But Faith won't. She has too much going for her now. _

"_I can't do it again, B.__"__ Now Faith is standing and making space between her and Buffy. __"__I can't go back to that.__"_

"_So don't.__"_

"_What if I can't help it?__"_

_Buffy is exasperated, she keeps looking back at Faith, the house, then the empty street, and back again. Like she's waiting for something to happen. __"__Faith, please. Just come back inside and we'll talk about this.__"_

"_All I did was hurt the people around me. __I ruin anything that matters.__ You know. I hurt you over and over again.__"_

"_I know what you did. It doesn't matter.__"_

"_It's all that matters!__"__ Faith is yelling, she has to remind herself to keep her voice down. An audience is the last thing they need. __"__No matter what I do, people end up hurting. All I ever do is wrong and hurting you seems to be the only thing I'm good at. I can't keep doing it. And I can't stay here knowing that it's gonna happen.__"_

"_No one can change the bad you've done, Faith, but you've done good, too. You can keep doing good. You're bigger than this. You don't have to run away. There is a way to be good again and that's staying here and trying to make it __right__.__"__ Then Buffy's voice hardened. __"__But if you leave now, all it's going to do is hurt me.__"_

_Faith says nothing. She turns her back to Buffy and bites her lip to stop crying. Buffy begs her again to please, just come inside. Faith doesn't move._

"_You don't get it. Just go back to bed.__"_

"_I won't,__"__ Buffy reaches out, makes a grab at Faith's bare arm. When Faith pulls so violently away, Buffy slaps an open palm across Faith's wet cheek like an accusation. Faith answers with fist to Buffy's jaw. The force and surprise of it knocks Buffy to the ground. Faith watches her fall and thump quietly to the sidewalk like a dropped rag doll. The sight of it makes her stomach twist and her heart clench._

"_Shit, B.__"__ And Faith is at Buffy's side. She has every intention of pulling Buffy into her arms and holding her until the sun comes up, but her hands don't brush aside blonde hair or slip into nimble fingers. They close tight around slender wrists and pin them over a shaking head. Faith is on her knees, one on either side of Buffy's hips and Faith knows she looks angry, can feel her face twisting into a scowl against her will. Buffy is crying._

"_Am I worth all this trouble? Do I deserve those tears?__"__ Faith shakes Buffy for good measure, but her resolve is weakening. She says what she's been __afraid of__ all this time. __"__Nobody needs me here.__"_

_Buffy doesn't fight back, she just lays beneath Faith, open and exposed. __"__What about me? I need you. And I tried to make that not be true. I almost killed you and it didn't change.__"_

_Faith watches Buffy's eyes change into angry, hardly feels it when Buffy shoves her back and the gravel in the pavement bites her palms._

"_And I hate it!__"__ Buffy continues. __"__I hate that it's so hard and that you can hurt me so much. I know everything that you did because you did it to me.__"_

_Buffy shakes her head again at this truth and it frees tears from her eyes and Faith's. __"__I wish that I wished you gone. I don't. I can't.__"_

_Faith rises to her feet and Buffy does the same. Faith begs, __"__B, please. For once. Let me do the right thing.__"_

"_The right thing is fighting. It's hard and it's painful and it's every day. But it's what we have to do. It's what we were born to do. You and me, together.__"_

_Faith thinks that t__ogether may be too much. She doesn't know how to make Buffy understand that together is everything Faith wants that she doesn't know how to have. _

_Buffy isn't finished. __"__If you're too much of a coward for that, then go. If I can't convince you that you belong here with us, with me, then I don't know what can. But do not expect me to stand here while you do it. And don't expect me to say goodbye because__―"_

_The abrupt blast of a car's horn swallows Buffy's words, its headlights tearing through any progress to be made. The taxi Faith called pulls up to curb in front of the two women and all either of them can do is stare at it. __"__I ain't got all night, __lady__,__"__ the driver calls. __"__Are you ready?__"_

_Faith is not ready, but__ she__ moves past Buffy and grabs her duffel bag anyway. Before Faith can open the car door, Buffy is already walking up the stairs to the house. She does not say goodbye._


	2. Shadowplay

**December**** 200****7**

**London**

"Look at that."

Willow was staring out the window at the absurdly early morning. She was all bright-eyed and had she a tail, it would have been bushy. Here Buffy was on her third cup of coffee and her eyes were barely open. Willow was just unnaturally chipper in the mornings. Buffy cringes inwardly at her own use of British vernacular, even in her head. She'd been in London too long. Nevertheless, Buffy humored her friend and looked out the window towards the rising sun.

"What am I looking for?" Buffy couldn't be certain, her eyes barely being open and all, but she was pretty sure she didn't see anything unusual.

"You're looking _at_."

"Okay, then. What exactly am I looking _at?_"

Willow stood next to her friend. Her brows were drawn and Buffy could see the worry lines starting at her mouth. Willow won't admit it, but this move has been hard on her. It's been hard on all of them, trying to adjust to all the responsibility. Buffy is sometimes afraid that Willow takes on more than she should. That, after all, is Buffy's job.

"Does the sunrise, maybe, look a little less than sunny?"

Buffy looked back outside and considers. "Well, London has kinda been where the clouds go to die."

"I don't think it's the clouds."

Kennedy stuck her head into the kitchen and asked if Willow was ready. Buffy suspected that maybe Kennedy had something to do with the lines worrying Willow's mouth, but she knew better than to ask. If Willow wanted to talk about it, she would.

"What about you, Buffy?" Kennedy asked. "Feel like going for a run?"

"No, no. The Folgers in my cup have yet to wake me up. You two go burn your inexplicable energy without me."

Willow and Kennedy disappeared out the door and Buffy was alone with her thoughts again. This happened far too often considering she lived with so many people. While Dawn technically lived here, she spent more time at Andrew's. That relationship was something beyond Buffy's comprehension. Willow and Kennedy always manage to be either nowhere; Willow off in some other dimension/time/thing serving the Powers That Be and Kennedy exercising her boss muscles training the new recruits at what was loosely referred to as The Slayer Center. Or they were everywhere at once. If they weren't being ridiculously vocal fighting then they were being ridiculously vocal doing the other thing.

You'd think a house full of women would have a houseful of women, but alas, Buffy was alone more often than not. This was something she'd grown accustomed to and usually preferred. Especially now. Being a slayer had always set her apart from those around her, something that both discomfited and warmed her. It was the pleasant kind of painful, and it kind of lent to a superiority complex. At least now, it was acknowledged and valuable, not ignored and cumbersome.

Buffy would have to shower soon, she was due at the office in a little less than two hours. Giles had some prospects on the monster of the week and Buffy would be expected for a briefing. She wasn't sure whether it was better this way, slaying on a 9-5 for the new and improved Watcher's Council seemed like she was betraying something. What, Buffy wasn't sure, but what else could she do? It was efficient, it was successful, and it paid remarkably well. So when Giles and some others had reestablished a new organization, Buffy was assured that she would be there on her own terms. Buffy had agreed.

Times like these, when she's got nothing but memories to keep her company, Buffy wonders if she made the right decision, wonders about a lot of things. She looks out the window to the street and sees Kennedy and Willow on the sidewalk. After a quick stretch, they took off away from the flat and into the early light. As Buffy looked on, she noticed that morning seemed darker than usual, the sky a deeper color than Buffy had ever noticed before. Buffy was reminded of one weekend she had spent with her father on a boat her had owned when she was a child. He'd been laughing at how superstitious explorers had been, finding good luck in the flight patterns of birds and such. She remembered how grave he looked when he spoke to her seriously. _A red sky at night is a sailor__'__s delight, but red sky at morning and a sailor takes warning._


	3. Bound to Get Caught

**August 2003**

**Cleveland**

"_What, are you hiding out here?__"__ Faith drawls. Buffy could hear the smirk on Faith's face before she sees it._

"_It was getting a bit stifling in there,__"__ Buffy says honestly. Buffy makes room on the empty storage bin that served nicely as a seat since renting house, an invitation for Faith to hop up and join her. She does. __"__Besides, it's finally cooling down.__"_

"_Housewarming too warm for you?__"__ Faith pulls out a unopened pack of Lucky Strikes._

"_Something like that.__"__ Buffy watches Faith unwrap the cellophane with practiced ease, she looks up just as Faith begins to tap the new cigarettes loose. Faith rolls her eyes and slides the pack back into her pocket. Buffy is quick to insist: __"__I don't mind.__"_

"_Yeah, you do.__"__ Buffy has never actually said so, it was sort of implied. Because really, no one actually enjoys sitting in a cloud of secondhand smoke, but she never openly objected. Despite this, Faith had recently made a point not to smoke around Buffy when she could help it. Buffy had dangerous thoughts about why Faith was so suddenly considerate. Dangerous may be the wrong word. Reciprocated was closer._

"_Those things'll kill you, you know.__"_

"_There are worse things to kill me,__"__ Faith shrugged. Buffy knew this to be true._

_Faith's hair had always been ridiculously shiny, this was something Buffy had always noticed and never understood. Buffy would go to great lengths to make her lackluster hair more... lusterful, had tried products that produced no results and cream rinses that were neither creamy nor rinsey. Her hair took work. Faith's was effortless. It, like everything else about Faith, was beautifully wild. And now, with the moonlight filtering through it, Faith's hair looked more beautiful than ever. There was a time when Buffy had found it unseemly to acknowledge thoughts like these, but lately it didn't seem to matter. Buffy had done the acceptance thing, come to terms, and still had room for more. It was what it was. Faith was hot, the end._

"_B?__"__ Faith was looking at Buffy like she'd never seen her before. Buffy was absurdly afraid that Faith had somehow heard her thinking. This was ridiculous, of course._

"_What?__"_

_Faith had a question in her eyes and Buffy knew it wasn't going to come out of her mouth. __"__Nothing.__"_

_Somewhere inside, Buffy hears the pop of a champagne cork. They'll have to go back inside soon. Buffy was suddenly struck with a do-or-die feeling and she didn't think she could keep quiet if she wanted to._

"_Faith?__"__ She looks at Buffy and her eyes hadn't changed. It makes Buffy brave. __"__You love me, don't you?__"_

_Faith looks like she doesn't know how to answer that. She drops her eyes to her hands and Buffy starts wishing you could unsay words. She hazards a glance at Faith and she's looking back at Buffy. Faith opens her mouth to speak but the only thing Buffy hears is the back door banging open._

"_Okay,__"__ Dawn starts. She's giggling so hard Buffy can barely understand her. __"__You guys need to come back inside. Xander did this thing__―__there was celery__―__just... inside.__"_

_Faith climbs down from the bin and follows Dawn back into the house without a word. Buffy isn't sure whether to hate or thank Dawn for interrupting._


	4. It's the End of the World as We Know It

**January 2008**

**London**

"This is absolutely astounding. Are you certain?" Giles asked for what had to be the fourth time in the last five minutes. He was addressing the man in the three-piece suit whose name might have been Nigel or Winston or something else decidedly English. NigelWinston nodded and reiterated once more that he was indeed certain.

It had been almost a month now since the sky had begun to change color. At first, you couldn't really tell. It just looked a bit off, something one could attribute to awkward lighting, cloud coverage, or pollution. But soon the blue sky became less blue. It was like the sky had frozen in twilight; it stayed that same bruised purple color it did at sunset no matter the time of day. It had almost been beautiful.

The beauty ended when the sky turned red. It went from rosy pink to the color of blood in only a couple of days. Everyone noticed. Meteorologists had speculated, clerics had prophecized, but no one had known. The general consensus was that there was something wrong with the air and had caused it to turn red. They could all feel it, even if they didn't know what it was. The air had changed. But this couldn't be true. Even Buffy, who had gone to school about as often as she went to the dentist, knew that the color of the sky had nothing to do with the air, it wasn't even the air that was colored, just the light. The sky's color was determined by the diffusion of wavelengths in the light. Since blue was the shortest wavelength, it was diffused up to ten times more and therefore dominant. If the sky wasn't blue anymore, it meant something was wrong with the light. Something was wrong with the sun.

The very idea was unfathomable and Buffy and the Council and humanity in general was concerned that such a radical change would lead to mass hysteria. It had already begun. The streets were filled with the rantings of madmen and proclamations of the end of days. It reminded Buffy of that time in college when the purple mimes with metal teeth had stolen the voices of Sunnydale's residents, of the shock and hostility and defeat they had all resigned themselves to. Buffy didn't want that to happen again and to the rest of the world. So now, with all the resources of the Council and the Powers That Be at their disposal, Buffy had waited (almost) patiently for just exactly how the world was ending this time. Because NigelWinston knew.

"I think we've established that he's certain, Giles," Buffy said. She'd been trying to get the two men to stop speaking in watcher riddles, to no avail. She was sick of watching Giles and NigelWinston exchange an assortment of British synonyms for words that were already stupid while they each cleaned their respective glasses. "The question is now, and has been since I started asking _this morning_, what are we going to do about it? Because I, for one, have actually grown tired of hearing myself speak."

"While that is a feat in and of itself, I'm afraid that this situation is far more dire," Giles was wiping his glasses again.

"We are talking about some big bad trying to destroy the world, right? Been there, done that."

Buffy was bored. After being appointed Slayer in Chief, she had learned quickly that a fancy title only meant longer hours and paperwork. Working for the council had been a last resort and she'd spent the better part of the last five years having variations of this same conversation. Something or someone was always trying to end the world. It went like this: 1) Do research, 2) Kick ass, 3) Apply witty retort/amusing pun to accompany said asskicking, 4) World doesn't end. Repeat as needed. But Buffy needed specifics not ambiguities muttered in hyperbole.

"I'm afraid you don't understand, Miss Summers," NigelWinston started. He turned the ancient text he and Giles had been discussing so Buffy could see. She had no idea what it said or why NigelWinston was under the impression that she could read Sanskrit. "According to this prophecy, the events have already been set in motion. The world isn't merely ending," he paused here for dramatic effect. "It's dying."

--

So I forgot to disclaim the song titles:

The Great Escape - The Bravery

Shadowplay - The Killers

Bound to Get Caught - PlayRadioPlay!

It's the End of the World As We Know It - REM


	5. Nothing Better

**Author's Note: **So, I've been getting the impression that these short chapters aren't going over too well. Sorry about that. I'd be more than happy to post longer ones but that usually means it will be longer between updates. Can we all handle that?

Title belongs to The Postal Service.

**July 2003**

**San Diego**

"_I can't believe you lived in California all your lives and have never been to Sea World,__"__ Andrew sounds nothing short of aghast. __"__We're going tomorrow, while we're here. We have to.__"_

"_I don't know if we have time for that, we're supposed to stay on the road,__"__ Buffy laments. Buffy suddenly wishes she had taken Willow up on her offer, she thinks being early at another Hellmouth in Cleveland would be better than road-tripping with the Scoobies (plus Faith) when Andrew was whining._

"_If we don't, you may never get another chance, and then you'll just have to regret it forever, and I'm not sure that's something I could let you live with.__"__ Andrew folded his arms and tapped his at the end of his sentence like punctuation._

_Buffy tries not to smile, uses her best Mom-voice, __"__We'll see.__"_

"_Personally,__"__ Faith calls from a chair in the corner. __"__I could do without being soaked in whale run-off.__"_

_Dawn raises a hand, __"__Second.__"_

_Andrew is all scowls and indignation. __"__They give you ponchos.__"_

_While the boys take turns alternately yelling at and smacking the TV, the girls ready snacks for the movie-thon. Buffy reaches absently for the ice bucket and grabs a hand instead of a handle. Apparently, Faith has the same thought. Buffy catches her eye over the table and their hands stay together on the handle for long seconds. Then they both pull away, look away._

"_I was just gonna--__"__ Buffy starts._

"_I got it.__"__ Faith takes the bucket and heads out of the room so fast Buffy actually feels a breeze when Faith moves past her. Buffy can hear her heart pounding in her ears. Her throat has gone dry._

"_You guys really need to just hook up and get it over with already,__"__ Dawn says, pulling open a bag of tortilla chips. The sentence startles Buffy so that she snorts into the water she was drinking. Dawn and Andrew each pull a face of mirrored disgust. _

_Buffy is flabbergasted and suddenly paranoid, silencing the pair with a horribly loud stage-shush. __"__They'll hear you!__"__ She looks to where Giles and Xander are still struggling to connect a DVD player to the hotel's television._

"_Relax, Buffy,__"__ Dawn reassures. __"__Everybody already knows.__"_

"_There's nothing to__―__what do you mean everybody? How could they all know?__"_

"_Uh, because they have eyes?__"__ Andrew offered._

"_That work,__"__ Dawn finished. __"__Don't act all surprised, what with all the stolen touches and secret smiles__, it's pretty obvious__.__"_

_Buffy gets defensive quickly, overwhelmingly embarrassed and panicky. She hisses through her teeth: __"__What? We don't... steal touches. There's no secret smiling.__"_

"_You do though,__"__ Andrew remarks thoughtfully. He's carefully stirring the Hidden Valley powder into sour cream to make dip. __"__It's kinda like all the sexual tension Mulder and Scully had, until, you know, they give into the sexual tension and it all pretty much petered out.__"_

_Faith chose that precise moment to reenter the room and the trio fell quickly and obviously silent. _

"_What're you guys talking about?__"_

_Buffy and Dawn respond quickly with __"__Nothing__"__ just as quickly as Andrew supplies a __"__The X-Files.__"_

_Faith opts to respond only to the latter, as it is, understandably more convincing, it coming from Andrew and all. __"__Sorry I missed it,__"__ she says, setting down the ice._

_Faith realizes her mistake when Andrew's eyes light up. __"__Well, if you wanted, I could--__"_

"_Really, though,__"__ Faith quells his thought before it can begin, __"__I missed it.__"_

_Buffy can't look at Faith. She can feel her ears burning, a sure sign she's blushing. Faith is standing so close, their arms keep brushing. It makes all the hairs on Buffy's arm stand up and she feels like Faith is doing this on purpose. This can't be the secret touching; everyone can see. Unless it is. The prospect of Faith looking for any excuse to touch her thrills Buffy on a baser level, a primal satisfaction grows in her belly at the idea that someone could want her this way again. Even if it's Faith._

_Especially if it's Faith._


	6. Another Brick Wall pt 1 of 2

**Author's Note**: Oddly enough, the general consensus seems to be that readers would prefer shorter, frequent updates, so I'll do my best to provide those for you. I'm hoping to get through this quickly before I lose interest (as I too often do) and since I dropped two classes, I actually have the time to write. To kick us off, here's a two-parter.

Oh, so I actually started this fic last year (hence the dates) but I've been continually working on it and I actually lost this 6th and my 7th update, so I've had to rewrite. This means that my dates will be off, so sorry for any confusion.

**Diclaimer**: Title belongs to Led Zeppelin. Any insensitivity shown in this update pertaining to the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina were included solely to establish the story as an exercise of creative license and do not reflect the opinions of the author.

--

**February 2008**

**Boston**

Faith was taking out her garbage when Kennedy showed up at her door. It had been nearly a year since they'd spoken, longer since they'd seen each other, but Kennedy still flashed that same wicked grin and greeted Faith with a heartfelt "I need a drink."

Faith let her in.

Now, Faith sat on her beaten couch in her crummy apartment, Kennedy looking at her with expectant eyes. "No."

"You have to!"

"Really don't," Faith rose and crossed the room to pour herself another drink. "You know I'm out."

"You say you're over it or above it or wherever the hell you think you are, but you're not. Slaying is who you are."

"Who I _was, _as in past tense. I'm done with all that."

Kennedy shook her head, "It's not done with you."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means I'm not here just because I enjoy your pleasant company." Faith feigned a look of surprise and offense. "There's trouble."

"And you've got how many slayers lined up to step up? I think you'll manage."

"You're not getting it. This is big, like The First times three on crack. I know it's not very often that you pull your head out of your ass, but even you had to notice what's going on out there."

Faith shrugged. She noticed. But what could she do? She couldn't control what color the damn sky was. What's more, she didn't care. She didn't see any towns falling in, or uber-vamps on the rampage, she hadn't been visited by any non-corporeal reanimations of her former boss/evil mentor/father figure, so as far as Faith was concerned, everything was peachy keen.

"You're all wicked capable, you don't need me."

Then Kennedy throws a curve ball, so sharp it hits Faith right in the gut, makes her eyes sting. "Buffy does."

Faith just downs the rest of her drink, the whiskey burning her throat as it slides to warm her quivering belly. She doesn't say what she's thinking, _I'm the last thing Buffy needs._

Kennedy shifts from her seat by the dirty window to the couch where Faith is. "She can't do this without you. In the prophecy it says 'The firsts of many will save them all.' That's you and Buffy. We can't do anything. It has to be you. And she knows it."

Faith considers this. It sounded true enough, but if Buffy needed her so badly, why didn't she come? Granted, the girl most likely hated Faith's guts, but was that any reason to be so unprofessional? Faith shook her head. No. She had promised herself she was going to leave all of it behind. All the killing and the dying and the pain. Faith was so tired of hurting. If she went back to Buffy, that was all that she'd get.

"Come on, Faith," Kennedy whined. She grabbed Faith's shoulder and shook her like an excited child. "Fight of a lifetime? Serious ass-kicking? You're really going to pass that up and sit around here doing nothing?"

"Looks like."

"Fine," Kennedy pulled out all the stops. Whether Faith wanted to acknowledge it or not, they'd been good friends once upon a time and Kennedy knew her pretty well. "Stay here like a little bitch and let the world end. And when it does and you're crying your pretty brown eyes out, just remember that it was all your fault because you were too much of a candy-ass to face Buffy again."

Faith turned her head slowly to face Kennedy, her eyes blazing with anger. Kennedy tried not to smile, she knows she's won. Kennedy drops to the floor and readies the spell to teleport herself and Faith back to London (it was the only one she learned from Willow because it called for Rhett Sand that smelled like vanilla, all the other magick stuff Willow used tended to smell like ass). Faith joined Kennedy in the circle she'd made and they both closed their eyes.

Before Kennedy began to recite the spell, Faith spoke: "And Ken? That is the last time you talk about my ass."

--


	7. We Might as Well Be Strangers pt 2 of 2

**Author's Note**: This bit follows directly from the last. I'm posting it in two parts because they occur in separate locations and I want to maintain the format. At least for now.

Title belongs to Keane.

**February 2008**

**London**

The Scoobies were all gathered around a conference table in front of a very morose Giles and a very excited Andrew. Giles was giving them the rundown and Andrew was copying and illustrating what he felt were important points on the dry-erase board behind them. Currently, the board was sporting a crudely drawn curling wave that looked more like the letter P and what was supposed to be a crater with the number 1 crossed out in its center.

Giles was telling them all what the prophecy had entailed, the three signs, each roughly two years apart, indicating that it had come to pass. The first was The First, ergo the number "1." The prophecy had said that the Mouth to Hell would swallow itself whole. The second sign was Hurricane Katrina; a purging of The Wicked from bowels (or maybe it said bowls, the translation wasn't clear) of the earth.

As Giles read this, Andrew drew little stick figures trying to swim in what barely passed for water. Giles noticed and snatched the marker away in irritation. He pointed for Andrew to take his seat next to Dawn at the table with the others and Andrew did so reluctantly. That was _his_ marker. Dawn patted his arm in understanding when he sat.

The third and final sign was only now becoming apparent, but had actually began in late 2007. "The sky will will bleed and Hell will pour forth through its wounds and infect the earth." It explained what they were experiencing in a way nothing else could. The first two signs could be explained away as coincidence but all three together, they were convinced, could only mean on thing: Impending Apocalypse.

Giles was able to clarify the danger with an analogy. The "wounds" in the sky were similar to those rips created when Glory had used Dawn to open the gates to her dimension. With them open, demons and disaster from every adjacent dimension bled through. Buffy raised her hand. "What's the plan, then? Give the sky some stitches?"

Giles sighed, he often had a very hard time telling when Buffy was being serious or sarcastic, but for once Buffy had the right idea, even if she was probably joking. "In a sense, yes. Our only hope is to repair these holes before they grow too big to be closed. Once the dimensions begin to mesh, the damage will be irreparable. There is a very fine balance of good and evil on the earth with the same precariousness as, say-- the ecosystem. Once that balance is compromised, it cannot be rebuilt. The world will simply cease to be. All that there is will be destroyed and will culminate in the, likely very violent, end of all that we know."

"Well!" Xander said, clapping his hands then rubbing them together vigorously. "Who's hungry?"

Everyone but Giles raised a hand. "Honestly, if you lot aren't going to take this seriously, then I'll only just stand by and let the world get destroyed and I won't even feel bad about it until later."

"You can hardly expect us to focus on an imminent threat like the end of the world on empty stomachs, now can you?" Xander intoned.

Giles guessed not.

"Where's Kennedy?" Dawn asked. "She was supposed to come back with pizza like, ages ago."

On the other side of the door, Kennedy and Faith were re-materializing. Faith nearly fell over when they did, her body not used to being pulled apart into billions of magical pieces and reassembled in seconds, thousands of miles away. It took some getting used to. Kennedy straightened her jacket and pushed open the large wooden doors.

Willow asked where she'd been at the same time that Andrew asked what she did with the pizza. Kennedy seated herself in one of the plush leather desk chairs at the table and nodded towards the door. "I was gathering reinforcements." Faith heard this and thought she wouldn't get a better cue and, now that she was no longer in danger of fainting, walked through the door.

The bravado and confidence Faith had walked in with melted into a puddle at her feet when six pairs of confused eyes settled on her. Somewhere near the back of the room, Faith heard Andrew mutter what sounded like, "That is so not pizza."

Faith's eyes were flying from face to face and finding nothing but unabashed surprise. They stopped at Buffy. She looked less like a deer in the headlights and more like she wanted to run Faith over with a very heavy car. "She said--" Faith rounded on Kennedy who was looking unbearably smug and extremely pleased with herself. "You said they knew!"

"Well," Kennedy starts, "clearly I was lying."

Faith spun on the heel of her well-worn motorcycle boot and left the room. She was trembling; her anger and embarrassment warring inside her. Faith stopped at an elevator and stabbed the button with her finger so hard that she broke it. She punched the button panel in frustration and her fist went right through it. It was bleeding when she pulled it out. Faith was shaking off the bits of broken tile when Buffy came up behind her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Buffy asked. It's no louder than a whisper but Faith can hear the disdain dripping from every syllable, she can feel the anger rolling of Buffy. It makes Faith forget her own.

"Kennedy showed up in Boston, said you needed help." Faith is too deeply ashamed of herself to find an excuse.

Buffy snorted. "Your help? If I needed your help, which I don't, I would've asked for it myself."

Faith shook her head miserably because she _knew_ it. She doesn't know what else to say to Buffy. She knows what she should say, what she wants so desperately to say, what she never will say because it's true and the truth has a bad habit of lying down on Faith's tongue and keeping her from saying anything true at all. So Faith does the only thing she knows how. She turns and walks away, leaving Buffy standing alone behind her.


End file.
